Digimon Xros Wars: Toki wo Kakeru Shounen Hunter-tachi

Digimon Xros Wars: Toki wo Kakeru Shounen Hunter-tachi takes place one year after the defeat of Bagramon and company. Since then, Taiki Kudou and Yuu Amano have formed a basketball team with Yuu’s classmate, Tagiru Akashi. One day, Tagiru discovers a strange area called the DigiQuartz, a strange and unstable realm that exists between the human and digital worlds. He then realises that children all over the world have obtained Xros Loaders as well as Digimon partners to participate in a competition called the 'Digimon Hunt'.

Digimon that wander from the digital world into the DigiQuartz are able to feed off of what negative emotions leak in from the human world. This makes the Digimon stronger at the expense of being extremely violent. As a result, the Digimon Hunters must work to stop these Digimon from wreaking havoc in the human world. Joined by the troublemaking Gumdramon, Tagiru aims to become the top Digimon Hunter, all the while unaware of Taiki and Yuu’s previous Digimon connections. Yet a sinister force lurks with the creation of the DigiQuartz, and the young Hunters will soon realize that the Digimon Hunt is much more than a simple game...

Kudou, Taiki Main

Takayama, Minami Japanese

Shoutmon Main

Sakamoto, Chika Japanese

Amano, Yuu Main

Oki, Kanae Japanese

Gumdramon Main

Watanabe, Kumiko Japanese

Akashi, Tagiru Main

Inoue, Marina Japanese

Damemon Main

Kikuchi, Masami Japanese

Yagami, Taichi Supporting

Fujita, Toshiko Japanese

Ishida, Yamato Supporting

Ichijouji, Ken Supporting

Park, Romi Japanese

Agumon Supporting

Sakamoto, Chika Japanese

Sakurada, Hiroyuki Producer

Kaizawa, Yukio Director

Kakudou, Hiroyuki Episode Director, Storyboard

Sanjou, Riku Script, Series Composition

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Apr 18, 2021

_Kaorinite

Recommended

There will be a spoiler mention later but I'll warn before we get to it. Also, this review can be read without prior knowledge of the Xros Wars (Fusion) series though it being the sequel to the 2nd season of Xros Wars, it will may have spoilers for the last season or two.

So, I'll be honest. I waited years to watch Seasons 1 & 2 of Xros Wars and right as i was about too, a Dub was announced for it, called Digimon Fusion. So, I watched it and it's 2nd season. The 1st season was not that good and got better around the ... half point, but I considered dropping it. Glad I didn't. The 2nd season was awesome and i waited years till recently hoping for a Dub but, the writing was on the wall, a dub was unlikely to happen especially given certain actors would need to be brought back. (In other words, would cost more to Dub) I also think (don't quote me) that Fusion did poorly in the US, which would further explain why Digimon Hunters (Xros Wars Season 3) didn't get a Dub. Maybe it will in the future but I doubt it but love to be wrong.

Anyway, that brings us up to speed with the series, now is Hunters any good? To my delight yes it is, very good in fact. While 2 or 2.5 episodes were stinkers for me, I enjoyed the majority. Does it have problems? Yes, it does, namely 1 thing goes unanswered involving someone who forgot the gang nor was it even brought up and the biggest thing you may've heard is, until the last 3.5 episodes, the plot revolves around the gimmick of hunting Digimon and the real plot is set aside with slight hints in a few episodes here and there (Emphasis on few and slight hints). BUT! Despite this, the "Digital Monster of the week" format worked really well. Some say there wasn't character development but that's not true. Its just harder to notice for some characters unless you're paying attention. Sure its not big or major character development for anyone but its there and each "Digital Monster of the week" episode we see has plenty of life lessons in it and more; over all it was enjoyable and a blast and one of the better Digimon anime out there if you ask me.

Now the good news is, you can watch this by itself, no need to even see the first two seasons of Xros Wars before the third season being Hunters. YES there will be spoilers for the first two season if you do this and YES you will lose out on context and such for some things but the Hunters anime does a good job of mentioning what happened in the last two seasons when it brings up anything/someone from the past two seasons and something that happened in the past. By the way, it'd been maybe 5 years? years either way since I last saw Fusion (Xros Wars) and i finished both seasons and sadly forgot most of it (Can't say those seasons were memorable, but that doesn't mean they're bad and it's prolly the same for Hunters too given the format) yet despite forgetting most of it, I wasn't lost for long as Hunters explained most of what I forgot for the characters and plot it brought up. That said am sure it would've been slightly more enjoyable if I could've remembered the last two seasons better.

Now let me rate the Hunters anime... a solid 7.5 out of 10.0 and I really don't feel it deserves the low score on MAL that it has, especially if you don't worry about the plot too much and just enjoy the "Digital Monster of the week" format the Hunters anime has as you'll get to the plot at the end, until then, enjoy the anime for what it mostly is and yes, there is a reason why it's like this and is explained in the plot towards the end.
Oh and I forgot to mention but I LOVE the OP music and didn't skip it but like once or twice.
Also, out of the new human characters, Airu is my fav~

Now about that spoiler I mentioned, we're coming to it but know what I'm about to say has no bearing on anything I said already nor did it affect the rating as this is concerning the end of the anime plot and the rating stayed the same both before and after those 3.5 episodes. Alright, stop reading now unless you have seen the anime and thanks for reading, hope it helped you and hope you enjoy the anime if you watch it. :)


Ok so, having the old cast (Not all, but a good many) return was pretty awesome, sadly I was already spoiled on this years ago and never forgot it (and would've been reminded even if i had) so i knew it was coming. It was not only awesome to see them again but sweet speculating the plot of what was coming as the Watch Maker and his role is where you start speculating, especially at the point the old cast i mentioned are teased around the half point given what happened up to that point and in the episode. Also, even though I watched the entire Digimon series' anime up to this point English Dubbed, watching the Sub wasn't that bad nor was I confused by any name differences for the old cast. The Japanese Sub was really well done too. Double Kudos to the fact Taiki (Mikey) Kudou's VA is the same VA who plays Conan Edogawa aka Shinichi Kudou in Detective Conan. Guess one truth really does prevail ey you two Kudous? (They both have the same last name and voice in both their anime, coincidence or not? Who can say lol)
I really do hope someday we get a sequel to Hunters as it was clear they may've been setting up for a sequel with how the Hunters anime ended (It has an ending but more can be made given how it ended) and I'd love to see the cast again, especially Airu and her Digimon.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Feb 28, 2012

SuiNoByakko

Mixed Feelings

Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time (Digimon Xros Wars: Toki wo Kakeru Shounen Huntertachi) is continuation of second season of Digimon Xros Wars (shocker, right?) however it feels NOTHING like its predecessor. Basically, it follows second season of Xros Wars with some time skip, it introduces a few new characters and gives slight cameo to old ones (including other Digimon series). Is that just a last resort trick to bring more viewers to terrible series or just a cherry on top of amazing anime? That’s for everyone to decide on their own and, hopefully, this review will help you with it.

Story: ... 5/10
No story until about episode 22 but, instead, we get random Digimon of the week action. They are over average, thus the rating, but for anime series that always has been going for an interesting story this feels like a huge let down. Maybe they tried to aim this at younger kinds but the fact is that they lost majority of long-time Digimon fans. Every episode follows this pattern: A wild Digimon appears, brainwashes a kid to do bad things, the main gang find it out and (nearly all the time) Tagiru hunts it. That’s it. Episode over. Plot itself is exactly the same thing but with more characters.

Art: 8/10
Art looks interesting, nothing amazing but overall very good. Not many problems (animation or fluency) and character design is loyal to previous Xros Wars seasons. Although characters of the week are usually dull, there are exceptions to this.

Sound: 7/10
Nothing memorable but nothing terrible either. I had no problems with this but the fact that I can hardly recall any interesting songs from this season lets me down.

Characters: 5/10
Aside from characters of the week (which appear again only if they are hunters!) the 6 main characters are quite interesting. Tagiru, the current lead character, is seriously annoying and, for some strange reason, everyone lets him hunt all Digimon they encounter. Not to mention he seems to be interested solely in the hunt and nothing else (and becoming digiworld superstar, as stupid as it sounds). Then there’s Taiki and Yuu, both from previous seasons of Xros Wars, they didn’t change much from the end of previous season season. Last but not least we have the rival trio that have both interesting characters and design, although after first few episodes they get a slight cameo here and there. Characters from previous seasons appeared in a few episodes but they were there more for a marketing than anything else because their role in the story was nearly equal zero.

Enjoyment: 4/10
I find this season rather boring and unlike first 2 Xros Wars seasons when I could hardly wait a week for new episode, sometimes I forget to watch this (although I’m a huge Digimon fan). I really dislike the no-story setting it has and the fact that the creators force Tagiru to be the star. Everyone does nothing and watches Tagiru beat and hunt the Digimon of the week. Ratio of others hunting on screen to Tagiru is about 1 to 10. Not to mention that the plot in the last few episodes was as cliche as can get.

Overall: 5/10
This anime is no good unless you specifically love episodic anime. Even in that case it's watchable when you’re bored but hardly otherwise. I recommend it for you only if you are a hardcore Digimon fan.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Aug 2, 2012

Nyron

Not Recommended

What the fuck were they thinking when they made this?
I can't ask a more direct question than that.

Digimon Hunters is very easily the worst Digimon series, it's pretty much bile. It succeeds in nothing but destroying amazing potential, wasting a good cast of characters, tarnishing a franchise and having a catchy opening song. Never again will I ever be so excited for a series only to end up this disappointed. Let me walk you through this so you don't have to:

Digimon Hunters takes place a year after the ending of Xros Wars. Bugramon is dead, all the Digimon are back in their own world, and ... Taiki is back to being a baller. All of this changes when Taiki's stupid friend Tagiru gets handed a Digivice by a cryptic old man, and then bam, Tagiru now has ownership of the unruly Gumdramon and is about to face "great danger". Taiki and the newly reformed Yuu get their partners back eventually, and Shoutmon looks like goddamn Ryoma from Getter Robo. The trio run around stopping evil Digimon from kidnapping and possessing people across the city while traveling to DigiQuartz, a post-apocalyptic alternate dimension that's shrouded in mystery. Then a new trio of rival Digimon Hunters appear, and our heroes must both combat and join forces with them under the watchful eye of the old "watchmaker".

And that's the first few episodes. Digimon Hunters probably starts off better than any other series besides Adventure 01, setting up a good cast of new and returning characters, a cool setting and a great premise. After that, nothing fucking happens. All of the Xros Wars cast appears again for very short, worthless cameos, the logistics of the setting crumble as Digimon just sort of run rampant and the public doesn't care, and none of the characters get any significant development whatsoever.

Like, I don't even understand. This was the thought process I had while following this show:
Episodes 1-5: Holy god this will be the best thing since Tamers, it's Xros Wars 02, omgomg the animation, the music, omg
Episode 6-10: Haha alright, this is pretty cool. Yeah. I bet the story will kick in at episode 12 or so.
Episode 11-15: Aha, nothing's happened yet, but there's so much set up...!
Episodes 16-20: What the hell is happening in this series. Why has nothing progressed at all. Why...? Wha..? That doesn't make sense, but okay...
Episode 21-25: Alright, fuck this.

Slowly, the great premise cracks, breaks, shatters, turns to dust, and then you inhale the dust and it tears your lungs up.

Taiki and Yuu are nerfed to hell and back, and are almost never present. Most episodes are just Tagiru and Gumdramon screwing around. Shoutmon's reign as Digimon king is pretty much irrelevant. Damemon's personality is mostly gone and his relationship with Yuu is flat and lifeless.

The old man who was the impetus of the whole plot isn't present for 95% of the show.

None of the enemies in the series are intimidating in the slightest, and more often than not get beaten by the hero Digimons' lowest forms.

The whole "people getting possessed and kidnapped" plot never progresses or gets more threatening. In fact, it just becomes a trivial annoyance after a while.

Akari, Zenjiro, Nene and Kiriha are all but completely non-present. Akari and Zenjiro are foreshadowed to get their own Digivices and partners in the opening, but it doesn't happen until the very end when it doesn't even matter.

The three new main characters, who have really cool Digimon and character designs, get no development. Ever. They're never successful as villains or useful as allies, and there's no reason for them to have ever been in the show at all.

It's miserable. It's garbage. And then it ends at 25 episodes.

Oh wait, I forgot the best part, the whole overarching story to this show involves the previous 5 main characters showing up: Tai, Davis, Takato, Takuya and Masaru. It's foreshowed for literally less than 15 seconds at one point, and then completely dropped, and then they show up near the end. They just... show up. Nothing they do is explained, they're just "there". For no reason. Even though it makes absolutely not even one bit of sense at all on multiple levels. And they're gone. End of show.

There's dropping the ball, and then there's filling the ball with cement and shooting it with a cannon into your own feet. This show is the latter. Fuck it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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